NAVAL COMMUNICATIONS are organized and operated by the Chief of Naval Operations, under the following policies approved by the Secretary of the Navy:
To maintain and operate a naval communication system based on war requirements; to provide and operate direction-finder stations as required; to continue the use of naval communication facilities to enhance safety on the sea and in the air; to co-operate with American commercial communication activities so as to enhance their military value in time of national emergency and to safeguard the communication interests of the United States; to provide and operate a system of radio stations adequate for communication with the fleet and merchant marine and direct with over-seas possessions.
The mission of the Naval Communication Service is to provide an adequate communication service for the support of the operating forces and for the conduct of the business of the shore establishment. At present it operates radio, visual signaling, sound, and radio direction-finding equipment in 300 ships and 600 aircraft of the Navy; a system of 36 radio-traffic stations, and 43 radio direction-finder stations, together with low-powered harbor radio stations and visual signaling stations, and a system of telegraph lines and telephone service on shore; facilities for the dispatch, receipt, and handling of U. S. mail (including air mail), a system of handling mail within naval units, and a system of couriers and messengers. This system affords rapid and reliable service between the fleet, wherever it may be, and the Navy Department, and among the units of the fleet and the shore establishment. It is in constant use for handling military information, orders, and administration. It is instantly ready for use in emergency to control the fleet or to enable it to take measures for the preservation of peace and security, or, if need be, for the prosecution of war. It is the nucleus around which must be built the much larger military network required for the operation of a greatly expanded fleet in war. It is used to link our outlying possessions to the homeland, and to maintain contact with certain foreign governments. Its spare time is used for a variety of public services.
Effort is made to stimulate proficiency in visual signaling in the American Merchant Marine. A competition is conducted between men-of-war and American merchant vessels. In the quarter ended March, 1936, about 300 visual messages were so exchanged.
During the time that the United States was in the World War, the Naval Communication Service expanded fourfold. This was accomplished by inducting communication personnel from commercial and amateur radio fields and by establishing large training schools. The instruction was intensive and the period of instruction was short, resulting in partially qualified men being detailed to important communication duties. The results were surprisingly good but would have been much better had there been a trained communication reserve ready for duty at the outbreak of war.
With this idea in mind, a Reserve has been organized, administered, and trained as far as possible, on a voluntary basis. This plan was placed in effect after the Naval Reserve was reorganized by Act of Congress in 1925. To interest and recruit the desired personnel, some form of organized activity was imperative. Reserve radio operations were required to maintain interest and to insure continued willingness to learn Naval Communication procedure and methods. The Naval Communication Reserve now has about 5,000 officers and men.
The organization is based on the naval districts, each district being divided into sections, and the sections into units, which are the active components for exercise and drill. Regular radio drills are conducted weekly by the districts and bi-weekly on a national basis. There is thus a very complete system of radio training circuits.
In June, 1930, the Navy Department published the American Red Cross Emergency Communication Plan for relief communications, a very complete plan for furnishing emergency communication which is available to the American Red Cross or other organizations in case of disaster or other emergency. This plan has functioned beyond the most optimistic hopes of those who conceived it. During the recent floods in the Middle Atlantic and New England States, the Navy Department estimated that over a thousand members of the Naval Communication Reserve were actively and voluntarily engaged in emergency relief communication. Thousands of messages were handled through amateur radio stations and through the government-owned Naval Reserve Control Stations, of which two are established for training purposes in each naval district. Every effort is made to enroll regular merchant marine radio operators in the Reserve.
In war, sole and undivided control over communications is essential for the safety of military operations and for national security. In event of war, it is planned that the President invoke authority granted him by law and allocate to the Army and to the Navy control over all radio communication facilities of the nation.
It is anticipated that military censorship over all forms of wire and radio communication will be exercised by a separate censorship authority. While this authority as such will function independently, the personnel will be drawn from the Army and the Navy.
Although under the Post Roads Act of 1872 the government has the right of recapture over much of the telegraph system of the nation, it is contemplated that the Navy will obtain such exclusive wire communication service as it may need on a lease basis.
Close contact is maintained with all commercial communication companies, whose confidence and co-operation the Naval Communication Service enjoys. The Navy has been represented at all international conferences on communications in which the United States has participated. It helps in national preparation for international conferences, and is now preparing for the International Telecommunications Conference in Cairo in 1938. Navy technicists will attend the International Radio Technical Committee in Bucharest in 1937.
Early in the present century various departments of the U. S. government commenced erection and operation of radio stations. The Navy equipped its ships with radio and built shore radio stations to communicate with ships; the Weather Bureau began the erection of stations for collection and dissemination of weather data; the Army began experimental use of radio for military purposes; and other departments of the government actively took up the use of this new means of communication.
To avoid extravagant duplication, the facilities of the coastal signal service are made available to other governmental departments requiring service. This is accomplished without providing added facilities. Because the Naval Communication Service must be maintained in peace ready for instant expansion in event of war, it has facilities not required for peacetime navy communication. The Navy is interested in handling this traffic, since it affords additional training to personnel.
Examples of ways in which the Naval Communication Service serves other departments of the government are: handling weather reports and forecasts of the Weather Bureau; broadcasting official information bulletins for the Department of State; disseminating various market reports for the Department of Agriculture; handling ship-to-shore, point-to-point, and over-seas traffic for all departments and agencies of the government.
The Naval Communication Service is used also in many ways to serve mariners, scientists, commercial interests, and the general public by broadcasting weather forecasts and storm warnings of the Weather Bureau; broadcasting reports of obstructions and dangers to navigation from the Hydrographic Office, and ice warnings of the Coast Guard’s International Ice Patrol; broadcasting time signals from the Naval Observatory; furnishing radio bearings to vessels of all nations, free of charge; furnishing advice gleaned from operating experience and growing from laboratory research, experiment, and practical test; furnishing commercial communication service to the public, where no American commercial service exists; assisting in commercial communication, as in the case of Pan-American Airways in Panama, and the establishment of transatlantic commercial service by the dirigible Hindenburg; and handling of American press news on over-seas circuits where communication companies would do so only at prohibitive rates.
The daily routine service rendered by the Naval Communication Service includes 67 emissions of time signals from the Naval Observatory; 69 emissions of weather reports from the Weather Bureau; 69 emissions of hydrographic bulletins and notices to mariners and aviators from the Navy’s Hydrographic Office; 8 emissions of information bulletins from the Department of State; 5 emissions of press news and market reports for information of naval vessels at sea; 570 radio bearings to vessels at sea; and more than 184,000 words daily in messages of other government departments.
Since April 6, 1935, the Navy has established receiving stations at the United States diplomatic missions in Paris, Berlin, Rome, Geneva, London, Lima, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Cairo, and Sydney. It is expected shortly to open another in Calcutta. Through these stations, the Department of State keeps our diplomats posted daily on current affairs as seen through American eyes.
At the request of the State Department the Navy established a complete radio transmitting and receiving station at the American Legation, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, during that recent trouble. Four selected Navy radiomen were sent there with the necessary equipment. After overcoming considerable obstacles, they established communication directly with the Navy Department at Washington on October 30, 1935. Communication has been maintained without interruption, except during the few hours of rioting in Addis Ababa, when the Legation was temporarily abandoned. The Navy radiomen acquitted themselves splendidly in defending the Legation against overwhelming numbers and have been advanced in rating as a reward.
The primary value of direction-finder stations to the Navy lies in their potential ability to locate enemy vessels in time of war. For this reason it is necessary that the Navy fully maintain and efficiently operate them.
During 1935 the direction-finder stations furnished approximately 28,000 bearings to naval vessels and 180,000 bearings to other craft.
The total traffic handled over the Navy’s shore radio system, including relays, during 1935, was 127,031,726 words; 53 per cent of this traffic was for other departments of the government. The handling of this traffic by the Navy is estimated to have saved the government $1,561,152 for navy traffic and $1,764,330 for traffic of other governmental departments.
The unique position of the Coast Guard, a military service operating under the Secretary of the Treasury in peace time and under the Secretary of the Navy in war time, requires close co-operation, with constant liaison and planning.
Recently, a trial merger has been effected during which the Navy has undertaken to handle all Coast Guard shore radio communications on the Atlantic coast north of Norfolk. The experience gained has been most valuable for it has required development in communication practice quite different from that of the fleet. The problem has been to give excellent service between the small craft of the Coast Guard and their various shore stations.
During the World War the Navy purchased outright the commercial coastal stations (owned for the most part by the British Marconi Company) and the radio equipment installed in American merchant vessels, all of which were provided on an annual rental basis that equaled the cost of the equipment. At the conclusion of the war the Navy retained control of the foreign-owned radio stations until the organization of the Radio Corporation of America, which took over all the commercial stations. Thus, for the first time, the United States was freed from foreign domination of its external communications.
The Navy’s demands and the rigid specifications for naval radio apparatus have played no small part in the development of the radio art. In the beginning the Navy spurred improvement and development by purchasing for experimental use and ruthlessly scrapping obsolete equipment. One of the first radio sets used in an airplane was constructed by, taken into the air by, and used by a naval officer. Development of aircraft radio communication by the Navy has been steady and continuous.